1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a hypermedia authoring system.
2. Description of Related Art
Authoring systems are based on cognitive models for how writing takes place. For example, University of North Carolina's Writing Environment provides four workspaces called the network mode, the tree mode, the editor mode and the text mode. Smith, J. B., and Lansman, M., A Cognitive Basis for a Computer Writing Environment, TR 87-032, Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (June 1988). The Writing Environment is based on a cognitive model that reflects the need to organize resources before writing and to structure outlines according to both logical and presentational criteria.
Other authoring systems that provide a variety of similar features are summarized as follows: SEPIA is a hypermedia authoring system that has four workspaces: 1) content space, 2) rhetorical space, 3) planning space, and 4) argumentation space. Streitz, N., et al., “SEPIA: A Cooperative Hypermedia Authoring Environment”, In R. Rada (ed.), Groupware and Authoring, Academic Press, London 1996, pp. 241-264. Finally, CMIF provides: 1) a Hierarchy view to edit the hierarchy of a hypermedia document; and 2) a Channel view to specify synchronization among the components. Hardman, L., van Rossum, G., and Bulterman, D. C. A., “Structured Multimedia Authoring”, ACM Multimedia 93 Proceedings (August 1993), pp. 283-289.
However, none of the above authoring schemes support an explicit representation of relationships between the logical and presentational organizations of the document being authored. In addition, current techniques do not provide sufficient support for navigating through the information represented by the workspaces.